Sony Ericsson W890i

Discontinued 7th November 2007

What.. another Walkman phone
from Sony Ericsson? We've lost count of how many Walkman
mobiles we've seen.. but here's yet another one. The
Sony Ericsson W890i can be considered to be a
replacement for the ultra-lightweight W880i

Weighing in at just 78 grams, the W890i
is actually an HSDPA 3.5G phone with a 2" 240x320
pixel display, 3.2 megapixel camera, Memory Stick Micro
expandable memory with a 2GB card in the box, stereo
Bluetooth, an FM radio and of course the well-regarded
Walkman media player.

Impressively, Sony Ericsson have managed
to fit all of this into a handset that's just 9.9mm
thick, and it's certainly one of the lightest 3G phones
on the market.

So.. you'd expect that a power-hungry
3.5G phone that's this compact would have really rubbish
battery life, wouldn't you? Well, Sony Ericsson are
quoting 4.5 hours talktime and 13 days standby time
on 3G and a frankly remarkable 9.5 hours talktime and
15 days standby on GSM. They also say that the W890i
can play back music for 20 hours, or make 3 hours of
video calls. That's very impressive stuff.

There
are some compromises though - the 2" display
may be a little on the small size for some, and the
3.2 megapixel camera lacks a flash and there's no mention
of autofocus. We're not too impressed with the somewhat
cramped keypad layout, but all-in-all there are many
more good points to the SE W890i than bad points.

Sony Ericsson say that the W890i will
be available in Mocha Brown or Sparkling Silver colours,
however their press photographs also reveal an Espresso
Black colour scheme. The W890i should be available during
Q1 2008, and we know that most major carriers should
have it available.